Did you get enough Fringe Crush? May 31, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Blogging, Podcasts, Orlando, Events, Fringe, Web Sites, statistics, OrlandoScene, Arts, bloggingfringe , add a commentThis year I thought I’d employ a bit of science to my Blogging of Fringe - I was worried the site had turned into all Fringe Crush, all the time, and completely about local acts instead of National and International. I was mostly right.
Here are some handy graphs to point out why we suck:
Here we see Text only posts at 10%
VoiceMail Reviews and audio at 13%
Any non-Fringe Crush videos at 37%
Fringe Crush takes it home with 41%
My second criticism is that we favored local, and the numbers don’t lie:
International 6%
National Acts 13%
On the Fringe 38%
Local Artists 43%
This scale is even graded on a curve, because I counted Bric-a-Brac as national because they’re from Austin, but they all used to live here, and they were produced by Beth. And the only things in the “On the Fringe” category were folks who were not in shows, but many of them have been in the past.
That means we had a distribution like this:
I guess 19% isn’t bad for Long Tail content. I’d like to do better. It’s a mission of mine to keep that number above 20% all the time, so I guess we did pretty well this time.
The Videos and Audio did have some categories we threw them in:
The new Fringe Moments were 11%
The VoiceMail Reviews at only 13%
The favorite Fringe Crush with 41%
Everything else this year with 35%
Also, I was very proud of us when I found out Beth would be presenting a Fringe Crush award for the show with the most crushes. Denna counted up the results, and by no surprise, VarieTease won! I think that’s a challenge to the cast of Oral to do some more campaigning for next year.
One last statistic, of the 32 shows I saw, 55% of them were not local.
Again, we’re counting Bric-A-Brac and Parlour Games as National, because they are… sortof.
May is a Kickass Month for Arts Events in Orlando May 15, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Orlando, Music, Drupal, Events, Film, Fringe, floridacreatives, Likemind.orl, OrlandoScene, Arts, bloggingfringe , add a commentWhy is May such a great month for holding events? Sure, for our Northern friends, it means the end of bad weather, the opening of roller coaster parks, and a change in the scenery as the trees and flowers start to show their summer colors, but here in Florida, it’s more like the start of the summer’s hot, humid, rainy monotony, the arrival of the tourists, time-share owners, kids on summer vacation, religious zealots protesting Gay Days, and of course, bad drivers in rental cars.
The main reason I look forward to May every year is the arrival of the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival (Thursday the 15th through Monday the 26th). Every year, theatre companies, dancers, comedians, clowns, musicians, improv actors, writer/directors, solo acts and large ensembles, exuberant teenagers and road-hardened veterans alike grace Loch Haven Park with their creativity and energy, and Orlando gives every ounce of it (and more) back to them as many of the national and international acts begin their Canadian Fringe circuit, which brings them to a new city every two weeks. Show prices range from free (as in free software) to $10, and all shows require the one-time purchase of a $6 festival button - 100% of your ticket money goes to the artist. This is one of the only unjuried, uncensored events I know of in Orlando outside of a few open-mic nights, and even some of those are passing judgment on the performers (the other best example here is BarCamp).
18 months ago, I started gathering a group of my friends together every third Monday of the month for an event called Florida Creatives Happy Hour (Monday the 19th, 6PM @ Loch Haven Park). Now, those original 8 friends are hardly in the same room, but the group has grown to something resembling a small political party representing the creative professionals and hobbyists here in Central Florida (with a group getting started in Jacksonville as I write this). This month’s Florida Creatives falls during the Fringe Festival, so at 6PM on the 19th we will be descending upon their “Green Lawn of Fabulousness” to have a beer and some soul food and socialize. At 7:45, we will be attending American Squatter, starring Barry Smith, the creator of last year’s sell-out hit Jesus in Montana. Tickets are $10 plus your $6 Fringe button.
Despite the fact that Fringe starts on the same day every year, another festival seems to think they are better than the Fringe, by starting on the exact same day. Yes, the Florida Music Festival runs Thursday the 15th through Sunday the 18th this year, at pretty much every available venue downtown. In past years, you’ve been able to buy a one-time pass that gets you in to all the shows for the whole weekend, as well as nightly passes - buying a ticket to just one show will hardly do such an event justice. The festival also has a short film as well as an art contest, check these out too if you can find the time in between all of the other events happening at the exact same time.
What other events? How about that bizarre craft bazaar held semi-bi-anually at Stardust Video & Coffee, Grandma Party? (Saturday the 17th, 10AM to Sunset) For some reason they opted out of celebrating Earth Day in favor of overlapping with FMF and Fringe this year - the reason why is left as homework for the reader. Actually, if you find out, please try to explain this one to me too. At G-ma Party, you’ll not only find loads of handmade goods, like the cereal-and-eggs inspired work of the Breakfast Bunch, but trendy t-shirts, buckets of buttons, live music by some of Orlando’s best local bands (at least those who are friends with the festival organizers), a bal-looney community pool, and of course rummage piles and raffles.
Not as culturally significant, but still worth a mention, the second ever Florida Drupal User Group meeting will be held at the offices of MindComet in Maitland this Saturday (May 17th, 1PM). Check out the event and any follow-up at groups.drupal.org/florida.
Still more to come in this round-up of events, because I couldn’t write such a blog post without mentioning the Corazon Art and Music Festival being held at the Orlando Brewing Company (Sunday the 18th, starts 1PM, All Day). As I’m writing this I don’t have access to any listings, but I know tickets are $5, and I can give a serious recommendation, as this event is being thrown by Robert and Jonathan from Gamble Records, the folks who brought us the ELLA Music Festival in October. I expect you will see lots of singer-songwriter type acts, and you can trust Robert Johnson’s rolodex to bring you some great music (and art?).
There must be more happening during the next two weeks, but isn’t that enough? Of course, we can’t forget about this Friday (May 16th, 8AM-11AM) and the Likemind Orlando coffee meetup at the Lake Eola Panera Bread. This month there will be free coffee and hopefully a few free copies of a book called Murketing - I don’t have a lot of details about it, but I know the publishers of the book are sponsoring the coffee and snacks all over the US, so they get serious props.
If I’m missing anything here, please leave a shout-out, and I’ll try to include it in the next bulletin. Until next time, have a great May!
Hacking as Art April 28, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Reviews, Books, floridacreatives, Arts, Programming , 2 commentsLast week, I started the discussion of programming as a form of creative expression with some of the kids at work, and Kevin pointed us to John Littler’s Art and Computer Programming article. That led Eric to post a link to Paul Graham’s essay on Hackers and Painters, which I gobbled up and loved.
Again, I’ll say that I don’t like the use of the word renaissance, since the medium itself has hardly affected 5 generations of men and women. This next wave where we move toward semantic web and a mixture of online and offline applications shows lots of promise, but I won’t agree that this era can be referred to as a rebirth for many years to come, when I’m old and I’ve had some time to look at it from a distance.
Just that first essay where Paul talks about getting a day job and hacking at night is certainly how I’ve always felt about podcasting - I love it, and I’d love to get paid for it, but to do it 40 hours a week would really feel like implementing someone else’s plan instead of creating the art myself.
From Paul Graham’s original Hacking and Painting essay:
If a hacker were a mere implementor, turning a spec into code, then he could just work his way through it from one end to the other like someone digging a ditch. But if the hacker is a creator, we have to take inspiration into account.
I say this all the time, but one reason why I think so many folks at the Florida Creatives Happy Hour are programmers is because of the nature of the medium. We hack in our spare time, we release the apps quietly, thousands of people anywhere in the world may use and love the results of our labors of love, but we don’t get to see them face to face - painters, filmmakers, actors, poets, all have the ability to be present with their audience the first time they experience it. Television and radio are more removed. Web apps further still. We crave that human interaction, and the validation you can only get from your peers and your audience. That’s why all the hackers are there.
One of these days I’ll get some Processing projects going, and have some literal art created by a hacker to show off. When I get some free time, you’ll see. Whenever that happens.
You are not your own boss, a puppet told me so February 26, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Video, Puppets, Trends, Arts, Politics, monochrom , 1 comment so farmonochrom: Kiki and Bubu and The Shift
Maybe the first and last time I get to use the “puppets” and “politics” tags for one post…
One Grain of Rice for everyone in North and South America February 5, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Podcasts, Video, Earth, statistics, Arts, Boing Boing , add a comment
Vlog: Mark Frauenfelder - Rice Demographics - Boing Boing TV
one grain of rice for every person in the Americas there, arranged in categorized piles: the number of people who eat at McDonalds every day; the number of millionaires in the United States; the number of Billionaires; the number of people in South America who live on less than $2 a day, etc..
It was an exhibit by the London-based theatre company Stan’s Cafe, called “Of All the People In The World: The Americas.” They created it to help people understand hard-to-visualize statistics, such as the number of people who live in gated communities in the United States, the number of people who have been killed by tasers, and the number of people with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
OSTV ELLA Music Fest Teaser November 18, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Podcasts, Music, Events, Video, Travel, Liberatr, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Arts , add a commentThe first ever ELLA Music Festival took place at the Rogers Building in downtown Orlando in October 2007. The festival was a celebration of female singer/songwriters and female fronted bands.
In this video, one of the performers, Rachel Goodrich, turns the tables and interviews our host Becky for a change! We also get a sample of Rachel’s musical stylings in the background, recorded upstairs just minutes earlier.
This is just a tiny sample of what happened at the ELLA Fest. Subscribe to OrlandoScene.TV to get updated when new videos are posted.
More videos coming out every week on Miro and iTunes. If you’d like to get involved by suggesting an event or venue for us to highlight, get in touch with us at OrlandoScene.TV - thanks for watching.
Coworking London, any takers? November 8, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Music, Coworking, Trends, Travel, London, Friends, Arts , 1 comment so farIf anyone has Google Alerts set for CoworkingLondon, they’ll come across this blog post and reply soon.
I am currently staying in Northern London, and I’m now an expert at the tubes and trains here, so I can get to anyplace I like. I have a day off tomorrow until around 1600 (that’s 4PM for you non-Europeans), and I’d like to co-work somewhere in town.
The easiest way to be in touch is by email < rprice AT ryanpricemedia.com >. I also have a phone, but I don’t have the number handy. I’m hoping to get a response from Noel, because I know he’s been here on a coworking expedition before.
This has been a fun trip, the other day we rode a boat down to Greenwich (as in Greenwich, Mean Time or GMT) where all time begins and saw the “Painted Hall”. Been to some other random places in town, and went to an awesome french horn concert the other night, followed by a “buttoned down” concert with period instruments and guys wearing trainers (sneakers). It was really neat, an event called The Night Shift, wherein the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment gets on stage for just such a no-collars-required concert every so-often. You can bring your wine and beer in the hall, get up during the performance, and actually hear a bit of talkback from the conductor and the host instead of having to read it all off the program (or have your girlfriend whisper it in your ear).
